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Simply Put: What Does it Take to Really Improve Your Memory?

BRAIN Lifting books as weights

Truly, the simplest piece of coaching I can give you is:   It’s all about the daily routine. If you following YouTube sensation Jordan Peterson (Love’em and not depending upon the subject), you’ve probably heard of “Self Authoring.” Well if not, it distills down to make it happen by planning!!!!! So let’s get planning but first this message…

R.K. Atkinson (a well known researcher of the science of memory) wrote a ‘game-changer’ study in 1968 (with R.M. Shiffren) about the different “Memory Stores” in the brain and how we encode memory to channel information through from inception to short term memory to long term memory (see https://www.simplypsychology.org/multi-store.html for the more in-depth explanation of the study.) While I love good neuroscience especially good, clean studies such as this body of work — the bottom line is the same for all behavior and cognitive change: DO A SMALL AMOUNT OF PRACTICE AS CLOSE TO EVERY DAY AS YOU CAN. Strangely enough that can be 5 minutes a day.

Atkinson stresses the importance of ATTENTION on improving the target behavior. The training of the memory muscle starts with PAYING ATTENTION. Here are some little stories to illustrate both.

I have been studying Spanish for about three and a half years. I was really good the first two years, learned a lot and gained a decent pedestrian vocabulary. Why? Because I practiced 3x a week. Is my memory for concepts learned improving? Not so much. Why? Because I’ve fallen off of the Espanol wagon. When it’s novel we tend to be excited and are good students. It’s easy to fall off the wagon for sure (see Sept blog upcoming on “Falling off the Cognitive Wagon.”)

Let’s start again with Atkinson’s theory of improvement of memory starts with ATTENTION. In order to improve my Spanish, I wrote 3 Postits and calendar reminders last week:

MON                          WED                       FRI

5 min           10 min          Watch

Review          Review         Present

Vocab words     Vocab words    Tense Video

The Postits were on my mirror in my bathroom and in my calendar. My attention was drawn to this commitment. I remember to do my practice. I clearly benefited in class at the end of the week. Simple right? So why don’t we do it more? Usually because we are paying attention to other things and not our memory.

Another case: Time Management requires attention and memory. So many people are not developing their attention skills largely impart to Cognitive Disrupters.

  1. “Cognitive Disrupters”: all media that beeps/blops/rings/dances/sings/pop-up are “Disrupters” to your brain’s ability to grow attention and subsequently memory. Good attention (more coming on this topic) requires a slow build and if you are constantly interrupting your practice, it’s difficult to acquire the skill. Some are calling this THE ATTENTION ECONOMY, I call it THE LACK OF ATTENTION ECONOMY. These are “Time Stealers” as well as Disrupters (more to come.)

Time Management requires attention to planning, seeing, doing, adjusting and controlling impulses.

Start simple:

Put 3 Postits up on your mirror (see above):

Take Time to Plan My Day     Scan for Threats (see previous blog entries here)  Planning can be the night before or in the am although am is typically more hectic.

Check in for scanning for threats (something you might miss or a novel appointment in your schedule) at noon. (How to remember to do this at the office? Set an alarm.)

Re-adjust/Refocus your schedule accordingly for the rest of the day/eve.

Repeat.

Did paying attention to your schedule help improve your ability to manage time?

After a couple weeks of doing this ask yourself: “Did doing this every day, improve my memory to a new skill called ‘good time management?” I always look forward to your feedback.

Coming next: Time Stealers & Impulse Control.

Jenn Bulka, CCC-Sp, Ca License#14,006 Memory Specialist

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